


Cat in a Box

by valiantprincex



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Cosima's thoughts post Big Needle™, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 17:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11212989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valiantprincex/pseuds/valiantprincex
Summary: Cosima expects it to feel different.It doesn’t.(spoilers for 5.01)





	Cat in a Box

Cosima expects it to feel different.

It doesn’t.

Which is stupid really, it’s not like she really expected her body to recover right away, but she expected _something_. Maybe for the cosmic forces to give her some kind of physical sign that the treatment worked, that this all was worth it in the end. She waits, but a sign doesn’t come. The universe remains stubbornly silent.

Next morning Cosima wakes as usual – she coughs, fumbles for her glasses, slips the nasal cannula off and sets it down next to her bed. (Her normal, now.) ( _Fuck_. Her _normal_. She doesn’t even know if she remembers what it was like before. Like her throat was always full of thorns, like it had always hurt to breathe. Maybe this is why they told Jennifer Fitzsimmons to keep video diaries – like, besides the whole monitoring aspect. So she could remember.)

Delphine is gone. Again. Off to _Sardinia,_ an island that she vaguely remembers learning about in that Biodemography class she took first year of university. Delphine is _gone_. Part of her wants to kick something, throw a fit over being left again. She settles for shoving her pillow aside and it settles on the ground with a quiet thump.

Maybe someday Delphine will come back and stay.

 

* * *

 

How have you been feeling? _Fine_

Have you noticed any difference in your symptoms? _No. Maybe – I don’t know_

Your initial post-treatment test results should take a few days to process. Do you have any questions? _No_.

 

* * *

 

Her mouth tastes like ash and grave dirt.

She wants to ask: is it working?

She wants to ask: am I dying?

She wants to ask: was it worth it?

Cosima says nothing and lets the words wither and die in her throat. She’ll find out if it was working before long anyway, right? So it’s all the same in the end, right? She’s dying or she’s not, the end. One or the other. Why waste time worrying, then? Let the science happen. Or Something.

Except she _was_ dying, a dead girl walking, her lungs bleeding the life out of her right up until Rachel Duncan shot a silver bullet into her abdomen. She _was_ dying and now: maybe not.

The thing is, she doesn’t know what to _do_ now. This entire process flies in the face of the scientific process anyway: no clinical trials, no independent lab replicating the experiment, no control group. The entire thing is a goddamn joke. She coughs – it’s almost like a reflex, now – and wipes her mouth with the back of her palm.

“So the test results,” she hears herself say. “They’ll show… something?” Against her will her voice turns up at the end, hope crawling its way up her throat unbidden.

“We don’t know, really,” the doctor admits, “this is unprecedented. But we’ll keep testing, and maybe we’ll learn something.” Cosima hates the flash of bitterness that rises in her throat – it’s not like Delphine would have a different answer anyway, but – _this was us_. _This was our mission. Where are you at the end of it?_

The doctor continues, “Dr Cormier’s notes about your disease are quite extensive, so we should be able to track progression or improvement as it happens.”

Okay. Cosima looks down at her hands. Okay.

 

* * *

 

Charlotte finds her in the meal tent, setting her tray of food down next to Cosima’s. She doesn’t say anything for bit, just sits and pokes at her food.

“They gave me the treatment,” Charlotte says, finally.

Her head only comes up to Cosima’s shoulder and Cosima can’t help but think about how small she is. “That’s – that’s great,” she replies.

“It hurt.”

“Yeah.” Cosima turns to her, and sets her hands firmly on Charlotte's arms. “But hey, it’s gonna work, okay? We’re going to be okay.” Charlotte smiles, and Cosima feels a sick twisting thing slither into her gut, all full of doubt. _What if it doesn’t work? What if the treatment fails? What if it was useless anyway, because Charlotte was doomed from the start, and there was no point to all of this? What if they all were?_

“You can tell me the truth,” Charlotte's smile drops. “I won't be scared.” 

Cosima takes a deep breath, exhales. "I don't know."

 

* * *

 

At night Cosima runs her finger along her collarbone and up the curve of her throat and she can feel her heartbeat, right there under the skin, flickering like a candle flame. She thinks of breathing – lungs expanding, blood filling with oxygen, arteries and veins running it through her heart and back again. Inhale. Exhale. Sometimes she imagines not breathing. Too often she – inhales – stops – waits – thinks about what it would be like for this to be forever – thinks about what it would be like for this to be her last – exhales.

For the first time in a long time, she thinks of breathing for years.

 

**Author's Note:**

> "[Schrödinger's cat ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat)is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The scenario presents a cat that may be simultaneously both alive and dead, a state known as a quantum superposition, as a result of being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur."


End file.
